


I'll Never Let Them Hurt You (I Promise)

by LaceratedLullabies



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: But it gets fixed very quickly, David "Dave" Katz Gets A Hug, David "Dave" Katz Lives, David "Dave" Katz Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves Gets A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, M/M, Season 1, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, no beta we die like ben
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27028357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaceratedLullabies/pseuds/LaceratedLullabies
Summary: But whatever apocalyptic future Dave found himself in couldn’t be worse than the present. His world had already ended.-On February 21st 1968, Klaus Hargreeves dies in Vietnam. A heartbroken Dave follows his last connection to the man he loves: a time-travelling briefcase. 50 years out of time, Dave has to deal with a changed world, his aborted grief and a tortured Klaus who doesn't know him yet. Oh, and the impending apocalypse.
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz
Comments: 101
Kudos: 296





	1. Out of Time

On February 21st 1968, on the front lines of the Vietnam war, two men crouched low behind the sandbags, firing off shots when they could and sneaking glances more frequently to ensure the other was okay. They ducked down as a bullet whizzed past, barely missing them. Seconds later, Klaus’ head popped back up and he turned to Dave with a manic grin. 

“Christ on a cracker!” he exclaimed, flippant in the face of near-death, as always. “That was a–” 

The smile froze on his lips. Klaus dropped from where he had been hunched, his body falling limp to the ground. Dave was pressed against his side in a second, scrabbling for purchase, clutching his shoulder and trying to turn him over without causing further damage to whatever had caused him to collapse. As soon as Klaus was on his back, he saw it. The hole in his shirt over his chest, the growing patch of red around it. 

He pushed his hands over the wound, applying pressure like they had been taught to do. It blocked it from his sight, but now he could feel it, feel Klaus’ blood hot and sticky under his fingers and no, no, this was wrong, the blood was meant to be inside him. Klaus should be laughing at another near miss, should be leaning over between shots to share whatever thought was running through his head – thoughts about what they’d do back at camp that night, would the guys break out the cards and the whiskey, would anyone notice if they snuck out after a while – anything to distract them both from the horror of the present. He couldn’t feel Klaus’ heart slowing, because they were going home in a few weeks, going to put their hard-earned wages together and buy a place in the country, away from anyone who would question them, away from the ghosts. They were going to get a cat, or two, or five, and Klaus was finally going to learn to knit, and Dave knew realistically that those two things together could only end in disaster but Klaus would pull it off anyway because that’s what he did, he defied the odds and expectations. They were going to have a life together. 

Klaus made a horrible choked sound, then weakly raised a hand to grasp onto Dave’s arm, giving up on trying to speak to get his attention. Dave didn’t want to look down, didn’t want to face this reality, but he had to. He couldn’t let Klaus go through this alone. He let go of the wound – no amount of pressure could save him now – instead gently pulling Klaus into his arms and resting one hand against his cheek. Klaus leaned into the touch, like he had so long ago in Saigon, when everything was warm and glowing and they were going to be okay. He always pressed into touches, never wanted to let go on the rare occasions they could hold each other, but he also rarely initiated contact. He’d been getting better as the months went on, had started to believe Dave when he said he loved him, that he was deserving of love. 

“I love you,” Dave said, voice shaking and choked with tears, but he needed Klaus to hear the words again. Needed to say them, while he still has the chance. “I love you, Klaus, I love you.” It didn’t matter who heard them anymore. 

Klaus’ grip on his arm tightened, just slightly, in acknowledgement, before his hand fell limply to his side. His body fell slack in Dave’s arms, his eyes still open but unseeing, glassy with unshed tears. Dave lay him down, pressing a final kiss to his forehead before he rested his own against it, and cried. 

* 

He didn’t know how long it was before they dragged him away, leaving Klaus’ body behind in the dirt. Couldn’t remember much between Jacobs and Smith pulling him to his feet, offering words of comfort that he couldn’t hear and that wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Somehow, he was back at camp, sat on his bunk and staring vacantly at Klaus’, one hand wrapped around the dog tags around his neck. He looked down at the battered metal that read _Klaus Hargreeves_. Since Klaus had arrived out of nowhere (“Out of the blue,” they had joked) his tags had to be put together in the field, so they were made from a cheaper, more worn metal than the rest of the squads’. They had traded tags months ago before being sent on their first separate missions, to keep a piece of each other with them, and he found some comfort in the fact his own tags were still around Klaus’ neck, so even though he’d had to leave, a part of him would stay with Klaus. 

He was coming back to himself, though distantly, detached. If he kept his hands still, he didn’t have to feel the blood starting to stick and dry. If he didn’t move from here, he could pretend Klaus was about to walk through, flounce onto his bed with more energy and flair and personality than anyone here had any right to. If he didn’t talk to the other guys, he didn’t have to hear their condolences, their empty words, whatever platitudes they thought could begin to make up for the fact that Klaus was dead. Klaus was dead. 

He wasn’t even supposed to be here, in a war that had ended before he was even born. Dave’s focus shifted slightly, fixating on the briefcase shoved almost out of sight under Klaus’ bunk. He had come from the future, a future where the war was over, where people like them could live openly in... not complete safety, but far more than they had here. They had talked about it one night, leaving this all behind and escaping to Klaus’ time, but they’d decided against it. There wasn’t much in 2019 Klaus had left behind; his siblings who were more like strangers, who couldn’t see him past his addiction, even when his health and sanity and life were on the line. No home to return to, no close friends to speak of, and to top it all off, his brother claimed the end of the world was nigh. They were more likely to both survive the war than the end of life on Earth. So Klaus had stayed in a time he didn't belong, and it had got him killed. 

Dave couldn't stay here. Couldn't keep fighting in a pointless war only to come home to a family who would hate him if they found out who he was. Couldn't see this through without Klaus to give it meaning, to give him a future to fight for. Running on instinct, he dragged the briefcase out from under Klaus' bunk. He didn't have a plan, no idea what he would do in the future. Maybe he could find Klaus' family and try and help them. Klaus hadn't been close to them, but he'd loved them all the same. Maybe he'd have time to learn about the life Klaus had left behind for him. He could give him a proper memorial in his own world, something tangible to show he had lived, something more than another corpse in a jungle and cheap metal around his neck. Or maybe the apocalypse was closer than Klaus had thought, and he'd throw himself through time only to die on the other side. But whatever apocalyptic future he found himself in couldn’t be worse than the present. 

His world had already ended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! This is my first published fic in years, and my first on AO3, so I hope you like it. I know we opened on a pretty angsty note but it gets better soon :)


	2. Let Me Be The One To Save You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You'll be okay, Klaus," he repeated softly, the words he couldn't say to the Klaus who had died in his arms just hours ago. "I'll get you out, you'll be okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who left kudos and comments! I'm glad you guys liked the last chapter - I hope this one lives up to expectations!

There was a flash of blue light and an overwhelming wave of nausea – like the worst kind of motion sickness Dave had ever experienced – as the universe rearranged itself around him, and then everything was abruptly still. He had landed flat on his front in what appeared to be a metal tunnel, likely an air vent, but that was all he could register beyond a throbbing headache and the sudden cold. After nearly a year in the muggy heat of the Vietnamese jungle, the dry cool of air conditioning was unfamiliar, equally comforting and disconcerting because of it. Closing his eyes, he held his temples for a second, trying to gather himself before army-crawling forwards. He was near a grating at the opening of a vent when a familiar voice, laced with hurt, stopped him in his tracks. 

The first thing Dave felt was a bone-deep fear, one that ached in his chest and caught in his throat, because Klaus was in pain. Then he remembered the dead weight in his arms, watching the light fade from tearful green eyes, hearing a soft voice choked out, stolen by his own blood. Klaus shouldn't be there at all, shouldn't be around to hurt, because Klaus was dead. 

Leaving the briefcase behind him, Dave shifted forwards through the vent until he reached the metal grating at the end. Once there, he could see into the room, and the sight left him feeling hollowed with an agonising combination of hope and horror. It was Klaus; Klaus taped down to a chair, body littered with cuts and burns and bruises, eyeliner streaked down his face with sweat and tears. He was covered only by a towel, blood dripping down his exposed chest as it rose and fell rapidly with his panicked breaths. Tormented, broken and half-delirious, but he was alive. He was alive. 

He was talking to himself – or more likely, to ghosts – when two figures approached him, a man and a woman, both in blue suits. They had spun Klaus’ chair around to face them, distracting him from whoever he was listening to, and drawing Dave out of his worried haze and back to the present. 

“–and his wife were coming back from a ski trip.” 

“I remember,” the woman said. They were both staring at Klaus with some kind of cautious curiosity. “Forward, reverse.” 

“Yeah, that’s it, yeah!” Klaus chuckled. It was weak and forced, but calculated. Klaus had a plan, and Dave was willing to see how this played out if it gave him a chance to get Klaus out of here. “And his wife escaped down an alleyway. He says to say thank you.” 

The woman turned to the man suspiciously. 

“What’s he talking about?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“He was so grateful to you, Hazel, for having spared his wife.” Dave was piecing this together. It seemed the pair were assassins, which meant Klaus had likely been talking to the ghosts of their victims. And he was using their information to manipulate them, turn them against each other to draw their attention away from himself. “You know there may be hope for him yet, don’t you think?” he said, glancing around. 

“Bathroom,” the woman demanded. “Now!” 

Dave smiled, pride lighting in his chest at how well Klaus had played them. And since they had left the room, he now had a shot at freeing him. He struck out at the grating in front of him, hard enough to knock it loose while trying not to make enough noise to alert the torturers, and crawled out of the vent. Klaus shifted his chair around as best he could, watching him with confusion and thinly veiled fear. He put his hands up placatingly. 

“It’s okay,” he said, trying to keep his voice quiet and controlled, not quite masking the shake. “I’m not a ghost, I’m not with them, I’m going to get you out of here.” 

Klaus nodded, somehow both hopeful and disbelieving, and Dave slowly stepped closer, moving to kneel next to him. 

"I'm going to get a knife to cut you free, okay?" he said, not wanting to scare him when he took it out. He couldn't look up at Klaus as he said it, focusing instead on his bound wrists as he rifled through his pockets. Klaus showed so much through his eyes; the hurt and vulnerability he otherwise masked so well with his cultivated blasé personality, but also how tender he could be, how loving. He'd seen Klaus' gaze soften when they were alone, had seen it flare with protective anger when Dave was hurt, by the harsh realities of war or by words that hit too close to home. It stung to meet Klaus' eyes and find no recognition in them. 

Finally, his fingers closed around a switchblade and he flicked it open. With one hand he gently held Klaus' wrist away from the blade, while the other worked away at the tape. 

"You'll be okay, Klaus," he repeated softly, the words he couldn't say to the Klaus who had died in his arms just hours ago. "I'll get you out, you'll be okay.” 

He let his hand linger over Klaus’, just for a second. Just a moment to bask in the fact that he was alive, that he could feel him, real, here, before he returned to the task at hand. He moved on to the other wrist, cutting him free. The blade just broke through the tape when the assassins returned. 

Dave positioned himself in front of Klaus, shielding him. His heart hammered against his ribs, but he forced himself to stand tall and meet their eyes. He had faced death for less than this. 

“Who the hell are you?” the woman asked, training a gun on him. Weighing up his options, Dave decided to go with the truth, hoping to keep their attention from Klaus for as long as possible. 

“Private David Katz of the 173rd. I served in Vietnam.” And _that_ got the reaction he wanted. The two looked at each other with growing worry, completely distracted dealing with him. 

“And how exactly did you get to 2019?” she snapped. 

“I used a briefcase.” 

Without another glance, they both rushed to the air duct he had crawled in from. Dave turned back to Klaus. 

“Run,” he whispered, and Klaus darted for the door. He was shaky and unsteady on his feet, but gone like a shot, Dave just seconds behind him. They made it half way down the corridor before running into a woman in police uniform. She stopped at the sight of them, taking in Klaus’ state with a professional lack of reaction. 

“Are you Diego’s brother?” she asked him, and he nodded frantically. Then she turned to Dave, edging between him and Klaus. “I’m Detective Patch. And who is this?” 

“He rescued me,” Klaus said, immediately picking up on her suspicion. “He’s good, the ones that did this are still in the room.” 

The detective paused for a moment, looking down the corridor, brow furrowed in thought. 

“At least one of them has a gun,” Dave told her. She nodded seconds later, mind seemingly made up, and turned back to Klaus. 

“Can you walk to my car?” she asked. Dave held an arm out, offering his support to Klaus without making contact in case he wasn’t comfortable with it; after all, at least to Klaus, they didn’t know each other. He didn’t have reason to trust him yet. But Klaus took hold of his arm, leaning his weight on him, and something in Dave’s chest ached at the touch as they made their way to Patch’s car. 

* 

“So, off the record,” Patch said from the front seat. Dave and Klaus were both sat in the back of her car, Klaus leaning against Dave’s shoulder. “Because I know the kind of shit the Hargreeves get into, and I’m sure I won’t be able to solve this the way I’d very much like to, so off the record, could you explain to me what is going on?” 

Dave let Klaus begin an explanation, mostly because he wasn’t sure what had happened on his side of things, and because his own story was likely harder to explain. He had no reason for being here other than Klaus, but he didn’t know if he was ready to tell him what they had been through in Vietnam, nor if Klaus was ready to hear it. Klaus was exhausted but willing to explain, his tired voice strained, most probably from screaming. Dave tried to ignore that fact, to just revel in the fact that Klaus was here and speaking at all. 

“Do you remember Five?” Klaus asked her. “The space-jumping time-travelling brother who went missing?” Patch hummed in acknowledgement. “Well he came back, turns out he spent 45 years in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and he’s trying to stop it. The apocalypse. Except apparently this group of time-travelling assassins don’t want that to happen, so they’re trying to stop him. They thought I’d make good bait, or be able to tell them where he was. I tried to tell them otherwise but who listens to me, right?” 

Dave had actually heard some of this story. Over late nights and bottles of whiskey, shitty rations, or just particularly boring patrols, Klaus would regale them with tales of the Umbrella Academy. He had always been completely upfront about the fact he was a superhero from the future, and a good number of the men – mostly those who remembered him appearing from a flash of blue in the middle of the night – believed him. Even the sceptics enjoyed the stories of the knife-slinging vigilante and the man on the moon, tentacle monsters and a mind-controlling actress and a snippy old man in a child’s body, and the enigmatic seventh sibling with no powers but a passion for music. Dave knew the darker side of some of those stories too, knew of the cold father who had raised soldiers instead of children, how their powers had destroyed them, had driven Klaus to drugs, cost Allison her family and Ben his life. But for every secret Klaus told there were a whole host that he didn’t, so while Dave had heard about Five and the impending apocalypse, he hadn’t known that Klaus had been kidnapped and tortured over his whereabouts. 

Then the memory struck him. That first night, when Klaus had appeared in their tent, he had looked just like this. Covered in blood, wearing nothing but a towel, and God, had he escaped torture only to end up in a fucking warzone? The briefcase he had travelled with had sent Dave to that exact time and place. He must have taken it on the way out. Which meant that Klaus was only hours away from escaping, only to land in a war. From falling in love, only to die. 

He was so caught up in that realisation that he must have missed part of the conversation, because the next thing he knew Klaus was tapping him on the shoulder and pointing to the detective. 

“Sorry,” he said. 

“I asked where you fit into this,” she repeated. Right. How was he going to play this? 

“I also time-travelled,” he went with. “I was fighting the war in Vietnam. Opened a briefcase and wound up here. They seem to be used by these time-assassin people, but I don’t know anything more about them. It sent me to them, and by proxy Klaus.” 

Klaus gave him a calculating look, and shit, he knew that wasn’t true. He’d seen the familiarity Dave had with him, even if he didn’t understand it, and he knew Dave had known his name without being told. He met his eyes for a moment, then nodded, and Dave sighed in relief. Klaus would let him have his lie, for now, but he’d want an explanation later. 

“Where exactly did you get this time-travelling briefcase from?” Patch asked dubiously. 

“Found it under a guy’s bunk.” 

“And you were just going through his possessions?” 

“He died,” he said curtly, making it clear no further information was forthcoming on that front. He very carefully did not look at Klaus as he said it. “We were sorting through his things to send home.” 

Patch didn’t ask any more questions after that. She didn’t say anything, in fact, until they arrived at the Academy a few minutes later. 

“If I drop you off here, will you be okay?” she asked Klaus, who nodded. “If you need me, Diego knows how to contact me.” 

Dave helped Klaus out of the car, supporting him again as they walked up the front steps of what could only be described as a mansion. The doors were emblazoned with the same umbrella that branded Klaus’ wrist, and led to a foyer that was as expensive as it was hideous, like some kind of tacky museum. Certainly not a family home. There were signs of a fight, presumably from when Klaus was taken, most notably the chandelier lying broken in the middle of the floor in one room, which Klaus guided them away from.

They struggled up a staircase and along a corridor until they reached a bedroom. Once they entered the room, Klaus shucked Dave's arm off and collapsed onto a single bed he was too long for, one arm flailing as though it could speak for him, so he didn’t have to make the effort. 

“You,” he said, the waving limb motioning at Dave, “owe me an explanation.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Bulletproof Heart by My Chemical Romance. The title of this fic is from Vampires Will Never Hurt You, also by MCR. Neither of these songs have much to do with this fic other than those lines hitting right.
> 
> This fic came about because of this chapter - I wanted to write a fic where Dave rescued Klaus from Hazel and Cha-Cha, but then I had to think about how that would work logistically and the fact that Klaus won't know Dave at this point in time, and now we have a whole plot. I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, next one's up next Sunday and we'll get some Klaus POV :)


	3. Love Unknown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, to be fair, Klaus supposed clothes like these weren’t exactly common in the sixties. Certainly not in the more conservative places. Or a warzone. But he didn’t think they warranted this level of staring, and he really did not have the energy to deal with this guy’s old-fashioned sensibilities and... was he blushing? 
> 
> Oh.

Klaus stared at the man sat at the edge of his bed. His appearance was jarring; the outdated, blood-covered uniform would normally indicate a ghost, but Klaus knew that, as long as this wasn’t an elaborate dream or hallucination, he was real. And while a time traveller was preferable to a ghost, it also raised a lot more questions; questions that the soldier – David, had he said his name was? – was very much not answering. 

“Davey,” Klaus said to draw his attention. It worked; his head snapped back to turn to Klaus in shock. “That is your name, right? I was a bit...” Klaus trailed off, waving his hand to vaguely encompass the mess of pain and confusion that may have stolen his focus at the time. 

“Yeah,” he replied faintly. “Dave, yeah.” 

“So, Dave. Think you could explain how you got here?” 

“I was telling the truth about that. I used a briefcase, I think it belonged to those... time assassins?” 

“Right,” Klaus said, willing to accept that explanation for now. If Five could do it, he could believe that time-travel technology existed as well. But how Dave had time-travelled was far less of a concern than how he knew Klaus, given that he’d been in the past until less than an hour ago. “But you knew where it would send you, didn’t you?” When he’d explained it to Patch, Dave had made it sound like he’d arrived there by accident or coincidence, but when he’d spoken to Klaus, he had absolutely, undoubtably known him. Had called him by name. Had immediately assured Klaus that he wasn’t a ghost – which had been Klaus’ first thought. And he’d known that. “And you know me.” 

“I knew you,” Dave said. He was looking down at the bed, fingers absentmindedly playing with the dog tags around his neck. “You used the briefcase to time-travel. Arrived in a flash of blue light in the middle of the night, fell out of the sky and landed right by my bunk. You looked,” he gestured to where Klaus was lying on the bed, “like you do now. Injured and... and wearing a towel. And then we were attacked, and we had to go out and fight, and you were just thrown into a uniform and sent out with us. You became part of our squad.” 

So, in the timeline Dave came from – because Klaus was beginning to think he’d created a new timeline – Klaus had escaped torture and then sent himself into a warzone? Actually, that did sound exactly like his luck. He rubbed his temples against an oncoming headache, though he couldn’t tell if it was from trying to decipher the tangled mess that was time-travel, or the withdrawals. He looked at where Ben was stood, over the foot of the bed, arms folded, watching Dave cautiously. He hadn’t said anything since they’d got back to the mansion, maybe because he was as curious as to what Dave had to say as Klaus was, or maybe because he knew Klaus couldn’t handle another voice on top of the aches across his body and the fear of oncoming ghosts as he sobered up. He was struggling to follow one conversation. 

“And I died,” he stated. It wasn’t hard to piece that together. Dave had said that the briefcase had belonged to someone who had died, and he’d said he ‘knew’ Klaus. Past tense. That would explain some of the weirdness in the way he acted around him; Klaus knew how strange it was to interact with someone you knew to be dead. 

He had died. In some now-erased time loop, the timeline he should have been in, he would have been killed in a warzone twenty years before he was even born. “I’m too sober for this,” he lamented, pushing himself up – and fuck that hurt – to search his room for something to take. He heard Ben sigh and flipped him off; like he was willing to deal with sobriety on top of everything else. Soon enough he found a small bag of pills and took a couple out, turning back to face Dave, whose brow was furrowed as he looked at the drugs in Klaus’ hand. 

“You got a problem?” he asked, more defensively than threateningly. Dave shook his head. 

“We all have our coping mechanisms. Just be careful. Especially if it’s been a while since you’ve had anything.” 

Satisfied, Klaus stuck his tongue out at Ben, who rolled his eyes, before dry-swallowing two of the pills. Then he shuddered and clutched his head in his hands. He hoped when the drugs kicked in they’d get rid of this headache, if not the burning pain around his neck and along his arms. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Dave reach for him, then draw his hand away before it made contact. 

“Do you want to... get cleaned up?” he asked instead. “I could help deal with your injuries, if you like?” Klaus stared at him blankly for a moment. He had not been expecting that. 

It had been a long time since anyone had patched Klaus up. When they were kids, Grace would take care of them after missions. She was always so gentle, cleaning the blood off them, whether from their own cuts or whatever ‘villains’ they had been sent to kill. He could remember her making him tea and wrapping him in a blanket when he’d been particularly shaken up by the ghosts, offering comfort as best she could, in the days before he discovered that drugs could provide a more immediate, more permanent solace. Years later he’d left home, because Grace’s kindness was never enough against Reginald’s cruelty, and since then he’d had no-one to take care of him. His longest relationship had lasted all of three weeks, and even that was transactional, a means to an end. He’d never had the kind of partner who would comfort him, nor a friend, and there were too many years and miles and burned bridges between him and his siblings. 

People always wanted things. Klaus had learnt very early on that you were only as good as what you could do for someone. He’d been bought for his powers, they all had, and Reginald had made it clear that that was all they were worth, so by the time he was out on the streets he had learnt the mentality. He used people and people used him, for drugs, for sex, for money, for a place to stay, and he got through by making sure he was always getting the better end of the deal, or at least getting what he needed. But Dave had been good to Klaus since he rescued him. He’d distracted the assassins, drawing their attention to himself and away from Klaus, had helped him escape, had told him what Klaus believed to be the truth, and now he was offering to take care of his injuries, and Klaus couldn’t figure out why. Then again, he supposed, Dave had known him – the other him – in the war. Maybe he was just used to patching up people’s injuries. Maybe he felt guilty because the Klaus he knew had died, and helping him would alleviate some of that guilt. Whatever his reason, Klaus would appreciate the help, hurting and trembling as he was. 

“Yeah,” he agreed. “There’s a bathroom two doors down, if you want to go ahead while I get dressed.” He motioned to the towel still wrapped around his hips. 

“Sure,” Dave said, before leaving the room. As soon as the door closed behind him, Ben spoke up. 

“You believe him?” 

“I don’t see why not to,” Klaus replied, and it was true. It was a hell of a lie to make up, and it seemed to explain everything. Ben nodded. 

“Will you be alright if I check up on the others?” he asked, and Klaus waved a hand permissively. He was quite touched that he had asked. Ben could be quite short with him, and often Klaus couldn’t blame him, but he’d been particularly unsympathetic back in the motel room. Then again, ghosts and torture and withdrawals aside, he had just sold out their brother, so maybe he’d deserved it. And he knew Ben cared. It was just nice to hear it. 

Ben disappeared through the door to find their siblings, and Klaus pulled on a pair of lace-up leather pants, before heading to the bathroom. He was somewhat relieved to find Dave in there; he knew the mansion could be difficult to navigate. The first aid kit lay open on top of a cabinet, and Dave stood at the sink, scrubbing at his hands almost viciously. The suds came away tainted red. Was that his blood? Klaus didn’t want to dwell on that, so he just watched as Dave continued to wring his hands long after the water came away clear, before finally turning the tap off and facing Klaus. 

And immediately fixating on the leather pants. 

Okay, to be fair, Klaus supposed clothes like these weren’t exactly common in the sixties. Certainly not in the more conservative places. Or a warzone. But he didn’t think they warranted this level of staring, and he really did not have the energy to deal with this guy’s old-fashioned sensibilities and... was he blushing? 

_Oh._

Suddenly everything fell into place. The soft, concerned way Dave had spoken to him, the familiarity he seemed to have with him, the reason he’d come here after the Klaus he knew had been killed, why he'd responded so strongly to the nickname earlier, and now the attraction. Dave liked him. Had maybe had a relationship with him, in the timeline he had erased to save him. 

It was weird, that Dave could know him so well, have such an attachment to him, when Klaus didn’t know him at all. And it must be hard for him as well, to have been that close to someone only for them to no longer recognise you. Maybe that was why he hadn’t brought it up. 

He was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of running water. Dave had evidently turned away while he was distracted, and was now running a cloth under the water. 

“I think we should get you cleaned up first, yeah?” 

Klaus nodded, coming to sit down on the toilet lid. 

“I didn’t bother with a shirt for–” he gestured to the state of his chest– “obvious reasons.” Dave’s brow furrowed for a moment, before a slight, distant smile crossed his lips. 

“You never wore a shirt the entire time we were in ‘Nam either. Except when we were on leave.” His smile started to drop at that, but he shook his head and carried on. “Obviously you didn’t have uniform when you got there, so we just gave you what we had lying around. A spare pair of pants, a helmet and a vest. And because the vest mostly kept you covered, we didn’t notice for a few days that you didn’t have a top on underneath. I offered to find you one, but you said it was too hot. I think you just didn’t want to wear one.” 

Klaus let out a soft chuckle at that, as Dave gently brought the cloth over the cuts on his chest, wiping away the dried blood. His touch was so soft, so tentative, afraid of causing Klaus further pain, and it made something ache in his chest that had nothing to do with his injuries. 

“And after you got the squad tattoo,” Dave continued, “nothing was stopping you showing off your arms.” 

“Do you have this squad tattoo?” Klaus asked to keep him talking. He liked listening to Dave talk. It distracted him from his injuries, and seemed to distract Dave from the stress and sadness that had plagued him since he arrived here. 

“No, I’m Jewish,” he said. “We don’t really get tattoos. But it looked really good on you.” He waved a hand over Klaus’ upper arm, motioning to where the tattoo had been. “It had a skull, and the unit name. And you loved it.” He stood up then, going to the sink to rinse out the now bloodied cloth. After hanging it up on the towel rack, he went back to the first aid kit and dug out the antiseptic cream. 

“Sorry if this stings,” he said, before applying the cream to the cleaned cuts. Klaus winced a few times, because it did sting, but mostly sat still and let him work. Once the cuts were taken care of, Dave turned his attention to the messier burns along Klaus’ arms. 

“Are they cigarette burns?” he asked, and Klaus could hear the horror he was trying to keep out of his voice. 

“Yeah, I can handle these,” he said, pushing himself up. He’d burnt himself on cigarettes many times over the years. Not to this extent, but the principle was the same. He ran his arms under the cold water for a while – it didn’t do much for the pain, after this much time, but it would rinse out the ash. After dabbing them dry, he then applied a layer of aloe vera cream. 

“All better,” he said, turning to Dave with a smile. Dave was watching him with that concerned expression again, but he didn’t get a chance to say anything because the door swung open. 

They both turned around, startled, to see Luther, Diego and Five standing in the doorway. Five stepped forward, arms crossed, his face twisted in his typical unimpressed scowl. 

“Who the hell is this?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear Klaus never wore a shirt in Vietnam (in uniform, anyway). He's not wearing one in the squad photograph, and he's not wearing one when he gets back to 2019, and I couldn't see one when I rewatched the Vietnam scenes.
> 
> Hope you guys liked this update, next one's up next Sunday and we'll be getting more into the plot :)


	4. Paradox Resolution Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Temporal anomaly code B-192. Source 1968, destination 2019. Instructions: destroy the anomaly and all associated parties.”

**Previously:**

“And how exactly did you get to 2019?” she snapped. 

“I used a briefcase.” 

Without another glance, they both rushed to the air duct he had crawled in from. Dave turned back to Klaus. 

“Run,” he whispered, and Klaus darted for the door. 

**And Now:**

“There’s two,” Hazel said blankly, staring at the briefcases laid out on the bed. There was, indeed, two of them, seemingly identical in appearance, both previously shoved in an air vent. 

“Yes, I can see that,” Cha-Cha griped. “What we need to know is where the other one came from. And which one is ours.” 

Hazel was saved from responding when a _swoosh-clunk_ resounded throughout the room. The pair exchanged worried glances before Cha-Cha reluctantly retrieved the capsule from the chute that had appeared in the bedside table, unscrewing the top and reading the message. 

“Temporal anomaly code B-192. Source 1968, destination 2019. Instructions: destroy the anomaly and all associated parties.” 

“The soldier,” Hazel said. In their concern over the sudden appearance of the time-traveller and fears over their unwatched briefcase, they had lost track of both him and their prisoner. 

“It’s only been a few minutes, come on,” Cha-Cha beckoned, running out of the door. Hazel following after her, they made it to the stairwell at the end of the corridor before movement outside caught Hazel’s eye. He called to Cha-Cha, motioning for her to look out of the window, where they both watched as the soldier helped their former captive into a car, climbing in after him just before it drove away. 

“Shit.” 

* 

“Who the hell is this?” 

Startled, Dave turned away from Klaus to face the three people in the doorway. He didn’t know any of them, but could recognise them from the descriptions Klaus – his Klaus – had given him. The tall, broad man, who cast an imposing stature but stood hunched behind the others, must be Luther. The unofficial eldest sibling, Klaus had said, who had his siblings’ best interests at heart but their father’s rhetoric in his head. While he would normally adopt the role of being in charge, he would always defer in the face of someone he recognised as an authority – the authority in this case being the apparent child stood in front of him. 

From his physical appearance down to the school uniform, Five seemed to be a child, but his demeanour revealed the truth to anyone who knew to look for it. Klaus had said he acted like a grumpy old man, and that may be true, but there was something more sinister in the way he carried himself, with both a self-assuredness and a bitterness far beyond his years, and in the cold, calculating look in his eyes. There was no childhood, no innocence, behind those eyes. He wondered if Klaus could see it. He wondered if he couldn’t bring himself to. 

The man who stood beside him, who must be Diego if for no other reason than the knife he flicked between his fingers, was the one who had spoken. He was staring at Dave, suspicious and accusatory. 

“Hey, hey, hey,” Klaus said from his side, holding his hands up placatingly. “This is Dave, he rescued me. You can put the knife down, bro.” 

“Rescued you?” Diego demanded, and Dave watched as he finally registered Klaus’ appearance. While he looked better than he had an hour ago, with the worst of the blood cleaned up and his wounds treated, his skin was still littered with cuts and burns and the beginnings of bruises. “Klaus, what happened to you?” 

“Never mind that, who is this?” Five demanded, stepping towards him. Klaus, who had been about to respond to Diego, closed his mouth and seemed to withdraw into himself, and Dave hated watching him brushed aside like that. 

“Dave Katz,” he said coldly. “And I believe Klaus was going to say something.” 

Five rolled his eyes but motioned for Klaus to continue. Klaus shot Dave a glance that was... confused? Grateful? 

“Oh, no big, I was just kidnapped and tortured by the assassins that came looking for you,” he said, tone somehow treading a line between nonchalant and snarling. Five did startle at that, something that might have been remorse crossing his face, and that tempered Dave’s anger a little. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, clearly struggling to get the words out but trying to convey his sincerity. “I never wanted any of you to be hurt because of me. But I’m trying to stop the end of the world, so can we please skip to the discussions that might prevent further injury or death to us and everyone else on the planet.” 

Dave wasn’t convinced that that was a sufficient apology, but Klaus nodded for him to go ahead, and Klaus’ acceptance of it was all that really mattered. 

“You’re a time-traveller,” Five said to him. It wasn’t a question, but he nodded anyway. “How did you get here? Are you Commission?” 

“I don’t know what that means. And I had a briefcase.” Five’s eyes lit up at that, and he began to pace, forcing Diego and Luther to back out of the doorway. 

“And where is this briefcase now?” 

“Back in the motel room with the assassins, last I knew. It wasn’t really my priority at the time.” He couldn’t hold back the jab. Five didn’t react to it anyway. 

“So if you had a briefcase, and they have a briefcase, there are currently two briefcases occupying the same space. Which means they will have to figure out which is theirs, which gives me something to bargain with.” Dave wasn’t following this line of thought, and by their expressions neither was anyone else, but that didn’t seem to matter to Five; he was more talking to himself at this point. He had pulled a notepad out from somewhere and was trying to balance it on one hand while frantically scrawling with the other. “Do you know where the briefcase you used was originally from?” 

“I think it was theirs.” That actually stopped Five in his tracks. 

“This is brilliant!” he exclaimed with near-manic glee. “Okay, you’re coming with me.” 

“And where exactly are we going?” 

“To negotiate with the enemy. In exchange for solving their problem, I’m going to talk to the higher ups. I need you with me to verify which briefcase you used.” 

Before Dave could agree or disagree, or even decide which, Klaus chipped in. 

“I’m coming too.” 

They all turned to stare at him incredulously. Klaus looked dead on his feet; torture aside, who knew how long he’d simply been awake for? He needed to rest and recover, and he absolutely did not need to go back to that motel room, to the people who had hurt him in the first place. But he sounded determined, and it was good to hear that strength, that conviction in his voice. 

“Fine,” Five said, and apparently that was it decided. “Both of you, meet me at the car in five minutes.” 

* 

“No, this isn’t happening,” Hazel chanted as he paced the room, staring at the briefcases. “It’s going to be fine. We’ll be fine.” 

“Right,” Cha-Cha said, sounding as convinced as he felt, which was to say, not very. “All we need to do is find out which is our briefcase, and destroy the other one.” 

“Right.” 

A few seconds passed in uncomfortable silence. Hazel scratched at his wrist around the cast. Everything itched; he itched up his arms and down his back, he itched with nervous energy, with fear for what would happen if they couldn’t get this sorted. 

“One should be more battered than the other, right?” Cha-Cha reasoned. 

“Right.” Latching onto that thought, Hazel crouched down to examine the two cases. They looked the same at first glance, Commission standard issue, but on closer inspection one was definitely in worse condition, scratched up along the sides. “This is the anomaly,” he said, pointing to that case. “He must be from a later time, so his case is more scratched up.” 

“But how do we know that? What if he came from an earlier time?” Cha-Cha countered. “What if ours is the more battered one?” 

“How would ours have been damaged?” 

“I don’t know, maybe when you shoved it in an air vent because you couldn’t be bothered carrying it?” Oh, so they were still on that? 

“Yes, because you carry it so often!” he snapped, waving his injured wrist. “My physical therapist isn’t even covered by insurance!” He was so tired, tired of being stuck in a job he hated that didn’t even treat him well. He thought about Agnes and her soft smiles and how nice it would be to have the freedom to follow the path he wanted for a change. 

“You wanna do this now?” He didn’t, really. He wasn’t even mad at Cha-Cha, just sick of this shitty job they were both stuck in. 

“No,” he admitted, and her glare softened. They both turned back to the briefcases; whether he liked it or not, this was his job, and he had to get it done or they would suffer the consequences. 

“Would it be so bad if we destroyed the wrong one?” 

“If they’re both the same briefcase they should both have the same connection to the Commission. So maybe not?” 

It was an empty argument, and they both knew it. Neither of them was prepared to take a chance on the wrong case. They didn’t know what kind of repercussions that could have on them, the Commission, or even the timeline as a whole. They kept staring. 

“So we’re decided it’s the damaged one?” 

“Yes.” 

Neither of them moved. 

“But what if we’re wrong?” 

* 

Five had left shortly after agreeing on Klaus joining them, Diego following him out insisting he come too. The last Dave could hear of the argument, Five was saying Diego was too quick to anger and would ruin any shot they had at negotiating. Luther had left with a muttered comment to Klaus saying he hoped he recovered soon, before heading off in the opposite direction to the others, leaving Klaus and Dave alone once again. They had returned to Klaus’ room so he could finish getting dressed, and Dave was currently sat on Klaus’ bed while he rummaged through his closet. 

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. Klaus spared him a glance over his shoulder before turning back to the three t-shirts he had hung over his arm, at least one of which looked like it should have been too small for him, likely having been from his teenage years, were Klaus not concerningly skinny. 

“Oh, sure. I’m just raring for revenge,” he said with absolutely none of the rage of someone seeking revenge. Whatever conviction he’d had earlier was nowhere to be seen now, and more than anything he sounded ready to collapse. 

“Klaus,” he said wearily. “This isn’t a revenge mission, and even if it was, that’s a bullshit excuse.” 

It wasn’t fair to expect Klaus to be open with him, he knew. It was a process they’d gone through in Vietnam, building up the trust to be vulnerable with each other. For Dave that had meant outing himself, putting his secret and his safety on the line in the hopes that Klaus felt the same way. For Klaus, it had meant trusting someone with his heart. Klaus was an enigma; he was so accepting of himself and yet had so little sense of self-worth. He acted on the basis of dismissing his own emotions first so it hurt less when others did so, and it had taken them a while to get past that. He couldn’t expect this Klaus to be prepared to do that yet. To him, he was a stranger, a remnant of a life he hadn’t lived. 

“You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “But you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.” 

“Oh, I don’t want to,” Klaus said, pulling a top over his head. It was light grey and loose fitting, which hopefully would aggravate his wounds less. He sat beside Dave on the bed, looking at him while he spoke. “I want to take a bath and shoot up and pass out, and I am really not looking forward to facing those assholes again. But I also want to help. I want to help you and Five, and save the world.” 

There was something missing in his tone. Dave recognised it from how Klaus had spoken to the guys in their unit, when he’d enchanted them with the Academy’s successes and never breathed a word of their hurts. It was how he’d spoken to him too, in the early days. He wasn’t lying, but he wasn’t telling the full truth. 

That was okay. Klaus didn’t owe him the truth, and Dave believed that he genuinely wanted to go, whether he shared his reasons why or not. 

“Okay. As long as you’re sure.” 

“I’m sure. And hey,” Klaus grinned, and dammit but somehow, even with ten months and fifty years between them, that look still made his heart skip, “I have you to protect me.”


	5. Paradox Resolution Part II

A few minutes later, Klaus, Dave and Five were in a car – Klaus wasn’t sure whose it was, maybe Luther’s? – on their way back to the motel. Five had immediately claimed the driver’s seat, which didn’t seem the safest idea, but was almost certainly safer than Klaus driving, so he took the backseat without arguing. Dave had claimed the seat beside him, leaving Ben riding shotgun. 

Klaus spent the car ride in a state of nervous anticipation. The closer they got to the motel, the more he wanted to turn back. He really didn’t want to go, didn’t want to face the assholes who had tortured him again, didn’t want to face the memories and the ghosts he’d left behind there. He felt his heart racing, and flitted between gripping the edge of the seat and playing with the lacings on his leather pants in an effort to keep himself grounded. Across from him, Dave kept shooting concerned glances at him, and he flashed a weak smile and took a deep breath. 

When he’d been taken, Klaus had pretty much given up hope of ever getting away. He knew none of his siblings would notice his absence or come to his rescue, and that had hurt. He also knew that to an extent he’d brought it upon himself, proven himself unreliable to his siblings before, abandoned them, let them down. He knew they had reason not to come after him, and maybe that hurt more. But then Dave had appeared, and he’d looked at him like he was a miracle, and spoken to him like he was worth saving, and treated him like he was worth caring for. So while he didn’t understand what exactly Dave saw in him, what he’d done in some alternate timeline to earn that tenderness, it made him want to try, to keep deserving it. 

The concerned look didn’t leave Dave’s face, but he smiled reassuringly, and then, after glancing down at Klaus’ fidgeting hands, offered out his hand, open-palmed, resting in the space between them. Klaus took it. Dave’s fingers were calloused, his hand warm, grip firm enough to keep him present, and as Klaus interlaced their fingers it felt like something else slotted into place. He took another breath. 

* 

“Okay,” Five said after pulling up in the parking lot. He had undone his seatbelt and was craning around the side of the driver’s seat to face Klaus and Dave as he spoke. “Here’s the plan. We’ll go in to the lobby, and I will send a note to Hazel and Cha-Cha.” He watched as Klaus flinched at the names, and tried to ignore the pang of guilt in his chest. Acceptable casualties. There had to be acceptable casualties. Dave squeezed Klaus’ hand and he relaxed slightly, and Five felt slightly better. “We wait a few minutes so they know we’re here, so they don’t shoot us on sight. Then we go in and tell them which briefcase to destroy, in return for a conversation with my former employer, which will hopefully get us closer to stopping the apocalypse.” He wasn’t convinced they fully understood the plan, but that didn’t matter as long as they could follow it. After receiving two nods of assent, he stepped out of the car. 

The man on the counter was exactly what Five would expect from a sketchy motel – just as cheap and sleazy as his surroundings. This was not going to be a pleasant interaction. 

“Excuse me,” he said, leaning over the countertop on his tiptoes. He hated this body. Everything still felt horribly out of place; his limbs weren’t where he expected them to be, and his perspective was constantly thrown off. “I’d like a note sent up to customers by the names of Hazel and Cha-Cha.” The man sneered down at him. 

“Are you sure you’re in the right place, little boy?” He cast a glance at his uniform. “Don’t think you’ll find your mommy and daddy somewhere like this.” Five really hated this body. 

A second later, he had blinked behind the counter and twisted the receptionist’s arms behind his back. Holding them with one hand, he pulled a knife from one of his pockets and held it against the man’s neck, gaining some measure of satisfaction from his shock, and the fact he couldn’t break his hold. 

“I said,” he hissed in his ear through gritted teeth, “I’d like to send a note.” The man nodded frantically. Five edged the knife just slightly closer, before letting him go completely and helping himself to a pen and paper. After scrawling out a note, he handed it to the trembling receptionist, who promptly scurried up the stairs. 

* 

Hazel was pacing the room, Cha-Cha glaring at the briefcases as if that would give her the answer, when there was a knock on the door. Given that he was closer, Hazel answered it, finding a shaken-looking man that he recognised from the check-in desk, who handed him a scrap of paper before fleeing. He opened the paper and read the note. 

“It’s from Number Five,” he said. “He says he and some associates are here, and they can help us with our briefcase problem.” 

“A-ha,” Cha-Cha responded, looking up from the cases. “And just what is he getting out of this?” 

“He wants to talk to the Handler.” 

Cha-Cha sighed, and they both fell silent, weighing up their options. Contacting the Handler meant admitting they couldn’t solve this themselves, that Five was getting away with his own agenda and they were failing to carry out theirs. But in this instance, accepting help with the briefcase issue would save them further problems from the Commission, and set them back on track. 

“We can’t trust him,” Cha-Cha pointed out. That was a good point. Five had been ruthless, the perfect weapon. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill them if it suited his purposes. But he needed them too. He needed them alive so he could contact the Handler. Unless this was a double bluff and he was trying to lull them into a false sense of security. 

Five or the briefcases. Which were they willing to chance? 

In the end they didn’t get to make that decision because Five kicked down the door. 

* 

“Do we have a deal?” Five asked as he walked into the room, Klaus and Dave behind him. Hazel and Cha-Cha spared them a look before turning back to him. 

“Sure,” Cha-Cha said, sounding less than sure herself. “Which briefcase do we destroy?” 

Five nodded to Dave, and he stepped forward to inspect them. After a minute or so contemplating, he pointed to one. 

“The briefcase ended up in my time because it was taken from here. That’s how you’ve ended up with two of them. The duplicate is the more damaged one.” 

“It can’t be that simple,” Cha-Cha insisted, picking up the briefcase he had pointed to and shaking it accusingly. “We thought of that, we would have sorted it by now.” 

“I’m sure you would have,” Five said insincerely. “If you weren’t suffering from paradox psychosis.” 

“We do not have paradox psychosis!” Five rolled his eyes. 

“That’s denial.” 

“We were just worried about the consequences of destroying the wrong one,” Hazel chipped in. 

“That’s paranoia.” 

The pair of assassins shared exasperated glances, but Five didn’t have the time to deal with their stupidity right now. He thought idly that they should destroy the case soon and remove the source of the paradox, before their symptoms got any worse and they tore each other apart, but that was far from his main concern. He was here for something far more important than them. 

“It’ll wear off soon. Now get me the Handler.” 

Cha-Cha passed the briefcase to Hazel, who stared at it distrustfully. Five was really tiring of this paranoia. Thankfully, Cha-Cha was at the phone sat on the bedside table. After dialling the numbers, she stepped back, and for a few seconds they all stood, waiting. Then time stood still. 

It was always disconcerting when the Handler froze time. If you weren’t frozen with it, you feel detached, the air heavy and stale and cloying with the sense of ‘you’re not supposed to be here.’ He didn’t know whether it affected her in the same way or if she was immune, or even if she caused the pauses or if it was just Commission technology. She certainly seemed unphased by the process, surveying the room disdainfully and lifting the thin veil from her black hat to rest on top of it. 

“Hello Five,” she said, voice saccharine sweet. “So nice to see you again. And you–” she turned to Dave, who Five had only just noticed was also not frozen –“You have caused us some problems, Dave. But if we’re going to talk business, we should do so at my office.” She turned back to Five. “I believe you have something to discuss?” 

“Wait,” Dave interrupted. “We’re not going anywhere without Klaus.” 

“I don’t believe he’s involved in this conversation.” 

“I’m not leaving him alone with them,” he said firmly, glaring at the assassins as he did so. Five was glad he’d brought it up. The thought hadn’t occurred to him; he had thought earlier to blink Klaus and Dave out of the room, give them a head start to get away, but he hadn’t considered that he wouldn’t be leaving alone, and he hadn’t realised the repercussions of leaving Klaus alone against Hazel and Cha-Cha. Again. He wasn’t used to accommodating other people. He wasn’t used to other people. 

“Klaus comes with us,” Five said. The Handler sighed but nodded, then with a snap of her fingers, the world shifted. 

*  
Dave felt the same rush of nausea as when he’d first time-travelled, as they found themselves somewhere (somewhen?) else. He, Klaus, Five, and the mysterious woman he assumed to be the Handler were in an office room, and she was taking a seat behind her desk. Klaus shot him a confused glance – he had, after all, just been transported through time for likely the first time, and he didn’t even have the context of seeing the Handler show up. He gave him a rueful smile and a nod, hoping to convey that they couldn’t talk now, but that things would be alright. They’d handle it. 

“Gentlemen,” the Handler said, drawing attention back to herself. “What a mess you have created.” She sighed. “Five, you never learned, did you?” she said mockingly. “What’s meant to be is meant to be. And you were so good at keeping it that way. I know you want to stop the apocalypse and... ‘put things right’, but you have to realise that this is the way of things.” 

“And what about my family? I’m supposed to accept that they’re going to die in a few days?” 

“I suppose I could... pull some strings. Afford you certain privileges if you came back to us.” 

“Because that worked out so well the last time.” 

“But this time you wouldn’t be in corrections. I’m offering you a position in management.” She tapped a pen against the desk. “Just think about it.” She then turned her attention to Dave. “Now you. Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused?” 

Dave got the impression he wasn’t supposed to answer that question, but he wouldn’t have had an answer anyway. All he’d really gathered about the Commission was that they believed that time was meant to play out a certain way, and they would go to extremes to make that happen. And he had certainly screwed up the rightful passage of time. 

“Coming to the future with a paradoxical briefcase and completely rewriting a time loop. I mean we really ought to kill you!” she said brightly. 

“Then why bother bringing me here?” He was awfully tired of the secrecy and drama the Handler seemed determined to cloak everything in. He needed a clear directive, a clear threat, at least some idea of what he was up against. Five had initiated this meeting to get some aid, some answers, but all Dave could see so far was more and more to question. The Handler waved her pen around airily, unbothered by his growing impatience. 

“Because I think there are better options than killing you. We do, after all, have a place for individuals displaced from the timestream. A place right here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to my dad for pointing out that Dave travelling to before Klaus left results in two briefcases, which led to the paradox plot point. Hope you guys liked this one :)


	6. The Man I Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I knew the risks when I left. I had lost _everything_ ,” and his voice wasn’t flat anymore, it was wild, outraged, captivating, “lost the _only_ thing that mattered to me, and now I have him back and you expect me to abandon him, for what? The chance to save my own skin? By siding with the very people who tortured the man I love–” 
> 
> _The man I love._

Klaus stared between Dave, Five, and the woman behind the desk, trying to make sense of the situation. One minute he’d been standing in the motel room, desperately trying not draw Hazel and Cha-Cha's attention and hoping Five’s plan would be over soon; the next, the three of them had been transported to some kind of office building, with a woman who was presumably the former colleague Five had been looking for, and she was trying to convince him to come back. Five was hard to read – he always had been, and decades in the apocalypse certainly hadn’t made him more open – but Klaus was pretty sure he wouldn’t take her up on it. For one thing, she was insistent on this apocalypse, and Five was obsessed with stopping it, and she had been awfully condescending towards that. Five had always hated being talked down to or told he couldn’t do something, so her attempts to sway him would likely only strengthen his resolve. 

He couldn’t say the same about Dave though. The Handler was clearly in control here, after all, and she had made it pretty clear that the Commission wanted him dead, which was a hell of an incentive to do as someone said. And it’s not like he had much to sway him otherwise. Sure, he’d saved Klaus, and seemed to have some lingering affection for him from whatever they’d had in his time, but that wouldn’t be enough, he was never enough, he wasn’t even the same person Dave had known, and this is what he got for thinking maybe he could trust someone, that this time it would be different... 

Except unlike Five, Dave was not hard to read, and right now he was furious. His voice was as cold and hard as Klaus had heard it, dangerously toneless as he said, “You did not just say that.” 

“Frankly, David, I’m not seeing what better alternative you have. You’re out of your time, days away from the end of everything, and you want to stay there on some fool’s errand to stop it?” 

“I knew the risks when I left. I had lost _everything_ ,” and his voice wasn’t flat anymore, it was wild, outraged, captivating, “lost the _only_ thing that mattered to me, and now I have him back and you expect me to abandon him, for what? The chance to save my own skin? By siding with the very people who tortured the man I love–” 

_The man I love._

Dave might have said more, but Klaus was stuck on those words. _The only thing that mattered. The man I love._ He’d known they’d had a relationship in Dave’s timeline, that he cared about him to some extent, but loved him? Loved _him_?

Klaus had never been looking for love. His life for so long had just been getting through the day, doing what he had to to keep the high going, keep the ghosts at bay, keep himself warm and fed and alive another night. He didn’t have the time, the commitment, for friends or relationships. He lived in the moment and he lived for himself and himself alone. But Dave loved him. Dave loved him, and he had taken care of him and fought for him and known him, and Klaus realised that maybe that was something he wanted. He wanted that connection with someone. That’s why he was here in the first place, because he wanted to go with Dave, to give something back after he’d been so good to him, but not because he owed him. This wasn’t a transaction. This was the give and take that formed the basis of a real relationship. 

He was so caught up in the thought, shock and wonder and fear warring inside him, that he almost missed it, but he’d been trained better than that. Years in the Academy and years on the streets had taught him how to survive, so as soon as he saw the Handler reach under her desk he yelled “Get down!” and dropped. 

Dave and Five followed suit, ducking down as two shots rang out overhead. In a flash, Five was across the room and then back again, holding something Klaus couldn’t make out. 

“Get out!” he yelled, and Klaus and Dave ran from the room. Once they were across the hall, they turned around to watch Five blink out of the room just before an explosion rang out behind him. Dave dropped again on ingrained instinct, covering his head. 

“Dave,” Klaus said softly, kneeling beside him. “Hey, you okay?” Dave looked up at him, still present, to his relief. “Come on, we gotta get going.” He offered out a hand, which Dave took, and he helped him up before they ran after Five. 

“Did it kill her?” Klaus asked once they were caught up. 

“Probably not,” he said resentfully, “but it’ll hold her back. At least until I’ve got what I need.” With that, he grabbed their joined hands and blinked them away. 

They landed in a dark room lit by a series of red and blue buttons, the walls lined with a series of pneumatic tubes. Five grabbed at the side for support, panting from the effort of several jumps in quick succession, before drawing a determined breath and heading for one of the tubes. Well at least he seemed to know what he was doing. Klaus turned to Dave, who shared his blank look, before something more serious crossed his face and he walked over to one side of the room, away from Five. Klaus followed him, until they were as alone as they could get while still being close to watch out for Five if they were needed. 

“I’m sorry,” Dave said. 

“For what?” 

“I didn’t mean to say what I did, earlier.” Klaus had a split second of worry that he was going to take it back, take back those beautiful, terrifying words, when he continued. “I didn’t want to... put that on you. I don’t want you to feel like I expect anything, because of what happened in my time. It must be weird for you, I mean you don’t even know me–” 

“And it must be hard for you. Being... in love,” the words felt foreign on his tongue, “with someone who doesn’t know you.” Dave looked at him, seemingly surprised, and nodded slowly. 

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s hard. But that’s not on you.” 

“I mean,” he started, struggling with the words that knotted in his chest. “I suppose it’s not really me you loved. You loved some other version of me,” _some better version of me,_ “that fought beside you. I don’t know if I can be him.” 

Dave brought up a hand and ever-so-gently lifted his chin up, so Klaus was facing him. 

“Listen to me,” he said. His voice was soft, always so soft when he spoke to him. “You don’t have to be anything for me. You don’t ever have to love me. You don’t have to have anything to do with me. But I won’t have you thinking that you’re somehow less worthy than the Klaus I met, that I don’t love you just as much, because you didn’t have to go through what he did. I’m glad you didn’t. I’m glad you didn’t have to go through that war, on top of everything else you’ve been through. And I’m so, so glad that you’re here and alive, because I would rather you don’t remember me, that you don’t ever love me, if it means you get to live. And all of the things that made me fall in love with you? That wasn’t the war, it wasn’t circumstance, it wasn’t what you could do for me. It's just you, Klaus. You’ve always been deserving of love.” 

He didn’t realise he was crying until Dave wiped a tear from his cheek. He felt so warm, somehow broken and whole all at once. They were so fractured, a puzzle with half the pieces missing, but somehow the picture was still the most beautiful one he’d ever seen. He couldn’t say he loved Dave, because he didn’t. He didn’t know him. But he knew he wanted to. He wanted to know the love that had brought a man through time to him, the love that made him want to be better. He wanted to know the man that made him feel safe and known and wonderful. He wanted to love him. But he couldn’t untangle all of the thoughts and feelings, their half-written story, couldn’t find the words to make sense of this, so all he managed was a whispered “Thank you,” and he hoped he could make Dave see all that was behind it. 

Then they both jolted at the distant sound of yelling, of people running towards them, and Five cursed as he frantically shoved a piece of paper into a gold cylinder and sent it through the pipes, calling for them to follow him as he took off running. They would have time, Klaus thought as they dashed through the hallways, to figure out who and what they could be, but to have any future together they first had to make sure there was a future at all. So he tried not to resent the loss of the moment as they reached a room full of briefcases and Five flipped the dials, and instead focused on how natural it felt to take Dave’s hand once more as the case opened and he braced himself for another time jump.


	7. Discoveries

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some canon-typical Allison/Luther but it just ends up with them both realising they're siblings and that's icky.

An hour later, or more accurately, several hours earlier, Klaus, Dave and Five were back at the Academy. The briefcase they had used to escape the Commission had sent them back to just outside the motel. Five had waited a few moments before the tell-tale _bang_ of another briefcase exploding confirmed that Hazel and Cha-Cha had destroyed the anomaly. One less thing to lead the Commission back to them, at least. They headed for the car after that; Five wanted to get away before Hazel and Cha-Cha decided to turn on him. Although that shouldn’t be a problem for long, if the messages he’d sent from the tube room came through. 

Five had clutched the piece of paper the whole drive back, not willing to even pocket it for fear of losing it. This was his only clue for saving the world, for saving his family, and he was not going to let it go out of carelessness. It was just a name, but it was so much more than he’d ever had, so much more specific than an eye and a wasteland of rubble. 

They found Diego almost as soon as they came in, mid-conversation with Grace. He joined them immediately at Five’s urgent gesture with his free hand. 

“Where are the others?” he asked. 

“Somewhere outside,” Diego said vaguely, which wasn’t much help given the sheer size of the Academy. “We were looking through Luther’s moon research, he thought it might have something to do with the apocalypse.” He rolled his eyes at that, but with less derision in his voice than talk of Luther would normally incite. “Turns out Dad never opened them.” Ouch. That would explain why Diego was being... well, as nice as he ever was about Luther. Five hoped he was alright. He knew how it felt to be alone for years, how detached you became from everyone and everything, and to find out that he’d been isolated for no reason? 

“How did he take it?” he asked, and Diego fell into a more comfortable judgemental tone that Five found reassuring. 

“Bad, but apparently Allison knows how to make it all better. They headed out and I bailed when she started giving him those ‘secret’ glances like we were twelve again. I’m sure he’s fine now.” 

“Can you go get them? I’ve got a lead on the apocalypse.” Diego nodded and headed for the stairs. 

* 

Allison was... enjoying herself. How long had it been since she could honestly say that? She had left the Academy in search of stardom, to follow her dreams, to break free, but in getting there she’d tangled herself in a web of lies that had ultimately strangled her. If it wasn’t her rumours, it was the paparazzi twisting her words and actions, printing their version of her story to the public, until no-one, not even Allison herself, could remember what had been real. Had Patrick ever loved her? Did she make him? With one sentence or with many little twists? Or had he just fallen for a false version of her, someone who had never been real in the first place? It wasn’t her powers that made her a great actress, after all. 

But for the first time in so long, something felt real. She wasn’t hounded by reporters desperate to use her to make sales, or fighting to be a mother to her own daughter, having the one person she loved more than anything in the world taken from her. And while she missed Claire desperately, in a way that had been tearing at her chest for so long that she felt it had simply become a part of her, there was little else about her ‘superstar’ life that she missed. Sitting beside Luther in their childhood fort, drinking _really_ out of date cola, and laughing, felt familiar. It felt genuine. It felt like home. And then something happened, maybe a brush of hands or a glance, or a whisper of a memory of what they had wanted when they were half this age, and they both went in for a kiss. 

It should have been beautiful. The fulfilment of what they had wanted the first time they were here, that moment when they realise this is how they should have been all along. But it just felt wrong. 

She broke away from the now uncomfortable embrace, and was about to explain when the greenhouse door swung open and Diego walked in. 

“Five’s back, he’s got a lead on the apocalypse,” he said brusquely. 

“We’ll be down in a minute,” she said. He gave a nod of acknowledgement, then turned to leave. 

Once Diego had disappeared from view, she turned back to Luther, who looked crestfallen. “Hey,” she said, taking both his hands. “You okay?” 

“I thought it would feel... better,” he said, and she was relieved that he felt it too. Her feelings about Luther, warm and comforting in her chest, were real, but they weren’t romantic. She had just misunderstood them as a child desperate for validation, seeking love wherever she could get it. But they were siblings, and she felt for the first time that they both understood that. 

“Me too,” she agreed. “And I love you. But I love you as my brother.” 

“I think,” Luther started, and then paused for a while, struggling either to find the words or to say them. “I went to the moon, before I even had a chance to see earth. I know there’s a lot that I’ve missed out on by staying at the Academy. A lot that I don’t know about people, or life, or the real world.” And Allison realised that was true. While she and the other siblings had left and made their own lives after the Academy, with their own struggles and varying degrees of success, Luther had stayed, until Dad had finally sent him away. 

“I think you’re right. But Dad’s gone now, and if Five really does have the solution to the apocalypse, we’d better save the world so you can start living in it.” 

* 

Klaus watched Five fidget with the scrap of paper in his hand as Diego, and Allison and Luther shortly after, gathered in the room. 

“Finally,” Five said impatiently, unfolding the paper. “I’ve got the name of the guy who starts the apocalypse. We have to stop Harold Jenkins.” 

Klaus had no idea how Five had made sense of the machines they had seen at the Commission, nor where he had got the name from or how he knew it was related to the apocalypse, but he trusted he knew what he was doing. 

“I’ll check police records,” Diego said. Then, “Klaus, you’re with me.” 

Klaus glanced over at Dave. They hadn’t been apart since he had appeared, and being the only person that Dave knew in this time, Klaus didn’t want to leave him if Dave wanted him to stay. But he also thought that after everything Dave had said at the Commission, hearing that he loved him, he could do with some time apart to sort out everything he was feeling. Dave met his eyes with a half-smile and a nod, wordlessly reassuring him that he’d be fine, so he turned back to Diego. 

“Okay,” he said. 

“We could take a look through Dad’s research, see if he had anything that might be related to the apocalypse or this Jenkins guy?” Allison offered, motioning to herself and Luther. Five nodded approvingly, or maybe dismissively – either way they took it as a yes and headed upstairs. He then turned to Dave, and Klaus didn’t like the dangerous look in his eyes. 

“We’ll catch up with you,” Five said to him and Diego. “I just want a chat first.” 

“Take it easy,” Klaus said, mostly jokingly but with enough underlying weight for Five to know he was serious. “He’s been good to me. Don’t hurt him.” 

“He’ll be fine,” Five said, which was all he could really ask for. He followed Diego out to the door, hoping Dave would catch up to them soon. 

* 

Dave watched as Klaus and Diego left, still basking in Klaus’ words. He’d been afraid to let Klaus know how he felt, and just how close a relationship they’d had in Vietnam, for fear of making him uncomfortable. But since it had come out, it hadn’t changed the way Klaus looked at him or acted around him. If anything, he thought it may have brought them closer. Klaus hadn’t let go of his hand after they landed back in the future – present, he reminded himself – and had leant into him for the ride back. He was glad that, if nothing else, he could tell Klaus that he loved him, and from his reaction he was pretty sure Klaus believed him. He had definitely needed to hear it. And while of course he would respect whatever decision Klaus made, and be glad for any more time he could get with him, he was hopeful that maybe one day this Klaus would love him too. 

It meant so much to hear Klaus say “He’s been good to me.” Not enough people were, he knew, and he was glad to know that he felt safe with him. And he treasured how Klaus had wanted to protect him from his brother. Speaking of which... 

“How do you know Klaus?” Five demanded once the door closed and they were left alone. “What happened in your timeline?” 

Dave didn’t like telling this story. It was one thing telling Klaus, because he _knew_ Klaus. He knew Klaus in a way he’d never known anyone before, and even without the relationship they’d built between them, he knew he’d feel comfortable telling him anything. But Five was a stranger, and Dave knew what he was really trying to ask – he knew something had happened to Klaus in Dave’s timeline, and he wanted to find out what it was – and talking about Klaus’ death was hard enough by itself, let alone to someone he’d met two days ago. He kept the details brief, explaining how Klaus had accidentally travelled using the briefcase, how he inferred that he’d stolen it from Hazel and Cha-Cha originally, how he’d been swept up as part of their squadron. He tried to keep his explanation of the end brief and impersonal too, but the words still caught in his throat.

“We were on the front lines when he got shot. He didn’t make it.” 

“Thank you,” Five said solemnly, startling Dave into looking up. “I went back in time to save my family, and it seems Klaus got killed anyway. So, thank you. For saving him when I couldn’t.” 

“I didn’t know I’d end up in a time before he was... killed. I just wanted to say goodbye, tell his family. The fact that he’s still here, that I have another chance...” It was too much. He didn’t have the words for it. 

“Well with any luck, you’ll actually get to have a future together,” Five said. Then he grabbed his arm and they blinked out of the room. 

* 

Vanya was wrapped up in a set of warm pyjamas, Leonard having left the room to dry her wet clothes. It seemed a storm had just come on after she’d stormed out of the mansion after interrupting the ‘family’ meeting. She had barely noticed at the time, just like she hadn’t noticed the street lamps bending around her, she had been so caught up in her anger. Leonard was convinced she had caused it, that she had powers of some kind. Vanya couldn’t even consider that right now. 

She was about to call after Leonard, spotting some clothes he had left on the floor, when a red-backed book under his bed caught her eye. She pulled it out. On the cover were the etched initials RH. Vanya had seen this book, or plenty others like it, throughout her childhood. It was one of the fathers’ notebooks. She flipped it open, eyes catching on some words. 

_Number Seven. Unlimited. Uncontrollable. Dangerous. Should remain a secret. Mood altering medication to keep her sedated._

She had powers. She had been put on meds to suppress her powers. She had lost her meds after meeting Leonard. Leonard, who had this book, who knew she had powers, who had manipulated her, had kept this a secret from her when it was all she had ever wanted.

She had to get back to the Academy, find Allison. Allison had been right about Leonard. She had been trying to reach out to Vanya, to keep her safe – she may not be the best sister, but she really was trying. She wanted to look out for her. She would make it right.

She looked around the room to make sure Leonard was nowhere to be seen, when her gaze fell on her violin. She slung the strap of the case over one arm; she didn’t want to leave it as, if she had her way, she wouldn’t be coming back here. Clutching the journal in her free hand, Vanya slipped on a pair of shoes and ran out the door.


End file.
